VH-TBS 727-77C at BNE several years ago.This aircraft is still parked at BNE near the Aviation Australia hangar near the old ITB.They also have a F28-1000 VH-XNG parked inside their hangar.Photo R.Finlayson.

Pionair CV580 VH-PDW has been operating a freight schedule CNS-BNE-TSV-CNS the past 3 days.VH-PDW has been the aircraft on all 3 days.It arrives BNE around 3pm and departs at 0430 back to TSV.G5 N712KT arrived BNE 26sep from HNL.It is due to depart shortly to Sydney.First visit today from Global Express VH-VDX .This aircraft has only been in the country 4 weeks and is owned by the Pratt Company.Serial no 9101.It flew Bankstown to Brisbane this arvo.Also in today was rare Merlin VH-SSM which arrived from Noumea.

Qantaslink expands investment in regional Queensland

QantasLink has announced a significant boost to its product, service, and schedule offering throughout regional Queensland.

QantasLink’s Executive Manager Narendra Kumar announced that the airline’s two additional B717 aircraft will be based in Brisbane. These new 115 seater aircraft will commence service from early 2012.

In addition QantasLink will expand its network by launching a new Townsville to Moranbah service. From October this service will initially take-off twice a week on Wednesdays and Fridays to provide customers with seamless connections to Cairns and between Far North Queensland and the Bowen Basin coal fields.

QantasLink also celebrated the arrival of a new $30 million next generation 74-seat Bombardier Q400 aircraft, which will deliver the following network enhancements from 17 October 2011:

- Moranbah services will increase in frequency with a new late afternoon service departing from Brisbane at 5 pm on Sundays, Mondays, Thursdays and Fridays. A Saturday service will also be introduced for the first time.- Emerald customers will have access to an additional 396 seats per week with new flights introduced on Wednesdays and Saturdays. These upgrades will lift the number of return services to 38 per week- Customers travelling between Cairns and Weipa will enjoy two additional services on Tuesdays and Thursdays which will result in QantasLink offering 16 return flights and 1016 seats per week on this route.

QantasLink will also offer increased capacity with a 50 seat Q300 aircraft on the following routes:

- Roma will be serviced by six return services per day between Monday and Friday and two return services on Saturdays and Sundays.- Charleville will be serviced by a new direct service from Brisbane taking the number of direct services to four return services per week.

In addition to these announcements a new Qantas Regional Lounge will be officially opened in Emerald to offer Qantas Club members, and Platinum and Gold Frequent Flyers greater levels of comfort when travelling through this port.

Mr Narendra Kumar said these product and schedule enhancements represented a significant increase in QantasLink’s investment in regional Queensland and were in response to customer demand for more services to and from regional Queensland.

"QantasLink has continued to respond to regional Queensland communities who rely on air services by introducing a new schedule that connects them with Brisbane and beyond.

“These new services will also support Queensland’s booming resource sector which will benefit through the link these services will provide to key mining centres across the state,” he said.

Queensland Tourism, Manufacturing and Small Business Minister Jan Jarratt welcomed QantasLink’s increased investment, describing it as a boost for regional Queensland.

“These new QantasLink services will be fantastic for people in our resource centres and they will also serve to open up regions to new tourism opportunities,” she said.

“Queensland is where Australia shines and these additional services and new aircraft will give more visitors even more reason to stay a little longer and enjoy what our incredible State has to offer.”

Background

As the country's largest regional airline, QantasLink is embedded in regional Australia. With a network of 56 metropolitan and country destinations across all states and territories, the airline also launched its first international destination - Port Moresby in Papua New Guinea - in July 2010. Services linking Perth and Exmouth in Western Australia commenced on 30 March. Further services in WA between Perth and Geraldton will also commence 21 November 2011.

QantasLink has invested more than $850 million in 28 new Q400 aircraft since 2006, with the current fleet of 25 Q400 aircraft to grow to 28 over the next 18 months. The airline's fleet also includes five Q200, 16 Q300 and 11 B717 aircraft.

QantasLink is also overseeing the operation of the Qantas Group’s recently purchased Western Australian resources charter airline Network Aviation. Its fleet of nine aircraft is set to grow further, with the addition of a further 10 Fokker F100s.

Sunday, September 25, 2011

Qantaslink will increase BNE-Roma (RMA) from 28 a week to 34 flights.This will mean there will be 6 flights BNE-RMA on weekdays.BNE-Hervey Bay(HVB) will also increase by 1 flight a week and BNE-Emerald(EMD) by 2 a week.BNE-Moranbah(MOV) will increase by a extra 7 flights a week as well.Flights are expected to increase by the middle of October.

Friday, September 23, 2011

Within the next 2-3 weeks BNE will have a Challenger 600 from the USA and a Citation 550 from the UK .Both will be re registered on the Australian register shortly.I do not have any details of ownership at this time.

Thursday, September 15, 2011

AEROPELICAN will further increase the number of services to Narrabri in October.

The airline has announced that from October 17, Narrabri will be served by three daily return flights to Sydney on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays with the addition of a midday service on those days.

And the Narrabri Brisbane service will be increased to a twice-daily service Monday to Friday.

The extra services means that Narrabri will have 52 flights per week to the major metropolitan centres on the east coast, a service unmatched by any other NSW regional centre of Narrabri’s size.

The additional services are being scheduled to meet continually growing demand for air travel to and from Narrabri. The growing volume of passengers now using Narrabri Airport gives added impetus to the Shire Council’s plans for an upgrade to the Airport Terminal and Airport infrastructure.

“The increase in activity from the Narrabri communities, industries and businesses is encouraging Aeropelican to commit further to its Narrabri network by not only increasing its frequency from Sydney for the second time in twelve months, but also opening its first base out of New South Wales with its Brisbane operation” commented Fabrice Binet, Business Development Manager for Aeropelican Air Services.

This means it has now given them their operating licence to commence scheduled flights to and from Brisbane; Australia.

The airlines yesterday described this as a good news for the airline and its travelling public.

The airline indicated that whilst the approval is almost immediate to commence operations, it has a contract with Our Airline to complete this week’s flying which will end at the completion of next Sunday’s flight 11th September.

This will also give the airline some room to move to complete its charter mandate to return the Team Solomon Pacific Games contingent from Noumea of which the first flight arrived yesterday afternoon.

Solomon Airlines also indicated that the first charter arrival will see the newly received Airbus A320 remain in Honiara till Sunday when it brings in the final charter from Noumea.

It would then return to Brisbane that evening to commence its first commercial scheduled flight on Monday morning the 12th September from Brisbane to Honiara and return.

Friday, September 9, 2011

Alliance Fokker 50 movements this week have been VH-FKZ on 5 and 6 sep and today VH-FKW operated ADL-BNE-BKE(Bourke) on it's Lake Eyre tour.Exciting biz this week has been G-SANL a Global Express which arrived yesterday from the Maldives.It is expected to depart today or tomorrow to NZ.Arriving today was Falcon 900 P2-ANW from AKL.N55LC a Falcon also arrived during the week as well as N550PR a G550 which had done a few trips ex BNE over the past week.

New delivery was Virgin Australia 737-800 VH-YIB arriving from CHC on 07sep.

This week has seen some new mining FIFO flights with yesterday seeing Skytrans add 2 extra flights BNE-Clermont and BNE-Emerald as SKP 1044 and SKP 1018 respectively.On the inbound yesterday Skytrans had a extra 3 new arrivals being SKP 1045 AND 1047 from CMT and SKP 1019 from EMD.Out of interest BNE had 25 mining departure flights yesterday alone and 20 arrivals.

Tuesday, September 6, 2011

As you may have noticed from the Loop Rd work has commenced on the Northern Apron expansion at the domestic terminal.These works will be completed by end of 2012 .Listed below is a list of planned works till june 2014 from the BAC website.Some have been completed and some are about to start and others are yet to start.Over the next 10 years up to 4 Billion dollars of work will be happening at this airport.

As you can see below extension of the current international terminal concourse to the north and apron extensions and aerobridges are due to start in 2012 as well as the pavilion at the domestic terminal.Also airfield works to address Scheduled A380 ops is also planned. Additional maintenance facilities and taxiway links are also planned.Very exciting development over the remaining 3 years till june 2014.

14.2.1 Short-Term Development (2009- 2014)Developments required to facilitate short-term forecastgrowth of traffic demand and business and industry attractionare expected to include but not be limited to:• provision of additional taxiway links to existing runway/taxiway/apron systems;• preliminary works for the New Parallel Runway;• expansion of terminal, aircraft apron, taxiway system andgate capacity at the Brisbane International and BrisbaneDomestic Precincts, including:- Domestic Terminal Common User Terminal, CommonUser Satellite, Virgin and Qantas Terminals, with apronexpansion, and an elevated pavilion;- International Terminal Building Northern Concourseand apron;- capacity upgrades to the public parking facilitiesincluding a new short-term multi-level facility at theDomestic precinct and staged relocation of staffparking facilities to Central Parking Area; and- airfield works to address scheduled AirbusA380 operations.• business, industry and commercial developments at allairport precincts, including:- offices at Export Park, Brisbane International andAirport Village;- further freight facilities including offices andwarehouses at Export Park;- further retail and commercial facilities, a golf courseand an additional Airtrain station at Airport Village;- Business Park at Banksia Place;- additional aircraft maintenance facilities and expandedtaxiway systems at Aerotech Park;- construction of additional freight handling capacity; and- delivery of the first phases of the Central Parking Areaincluding ground transport facilities.

PERIOD 2014-2019

14.2.2 Medium-Term Development (2014 - 2019)Developments required to facilitate medium-term forecastgrowth of traffic demand and business and industry attractionare expected to include but not be limited to:• construction of the New Parallel Runway to 3300 m, withthe associated stage 1 taxiway system, navigation aidsand supporting facilities and infrastructure;• further passenger terminal expansion and aprondevelopment at both the international and domesticterminals, including Virgin Terminal and InternationalTerminal concourse (north) and Terminal core;• further cycle and pedestrian path network expansion;• further capacity upgrades to the airport road network;• expansion of the International Terminal mult-level car park;• realignment of Airport Drive in the InternationalTerminal precinct;• further development of the Central Parking Area;• further passenger terminal expansion and aprondevelopment at both the international and domesticterminals, International Terminal Building Concourseexpansion and associated infrastructure;• further Taxiway link development to access additionalhangars at Aerotech Park; and• further cycle and pedestrian path network expansion.• additional public and staff car parking facilities includingexpansion of the Central Parking Area;• International Terminal entry roundabout upgrade;• upgrade of road access to International Terminal from theNorthern Access Road;• construction of additional freight handling facilities andaircraft maintenance facilities;• further taxiway system elements to access additionalhangars at Aerotech Park;• further business, industry and commercial development atall airport precincts; and• additional aviation support facilities.

PERIOD 2019-2029

14.2.3 Long-Term Development (2019 - 2029)Developments required to facilitate long-term forecast growthof traffic demand and business and industry attraction areexpected to include but not be limited to:• further capacity upgrades to the airport roadnetwork, including:- enhancement of International Terminal road network;- Airport Drive and Lomandra Drive intersection upgrade;- Dryandra Road and Airport Drive to the NorthernAccess Road connection; and- enhancements of Gateway Upgrade and the Northern Access Road.

N550PR G550GLEX N528MPG450 B-KHKFA7X N55LCN146EX F900All 5 biz have landed within past week and some photos already appear on this blog of N528MP and B-KHK.BNE has also been visitor to C130 164997 for the past week as well.MD-82 VP-CBH operated BNE-SYD yesterday.